Sermon on Luke 12.13-21
Preached at Christ Boulevard United Methodist Church
August 1, 2004
Rev. J. Curtis Goforth, O.S.L.
Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me." But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?" And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, ’What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ Then he said, ’I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ’Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ’You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God."
As I am sure you are all aware, my wife and I are moving to England where I will be the pastor of five Methodist Churches in a mere two weeks. The big day when we fly out is quickly approaching, but we have been planning furiously since November. You can imagine what has gone into this move…Thoughts about what to do with our cars, thoughts about do we take the dog or not, thoughts about how much this will cost us, but mostly thoughts about where to put our stuff. Eight years ago everything I owned would fit in my little car. One year ago, everything I owned quadrupled almost overnight when Jennifer and I were married. If only the stock market saw the increases that our closets and cabinets have seen.
Stuff. A popular cartoon that comes on the television dealt with the theme once of the end of the world. The character was speaking with a figure who was bent on destroying the world. When the character heard the plan of the evil villain, he remarked, “But you can’t destroy the world—that’s where I keep all my stuff!”
When Jennifer and I were busy planning the wedding, we looked for an apartment together, and the one thing that made us decide to rent the apartment we chose was the fact that it had a closet as large as many of the rooms we saw in other apartments. We are not alone in our accumulation crisis. We all have the same problem—we never have enough room for all our stuff.
This accumulation crisis really hit home when we decided that the majority of our stuff we would need to put in storage for the year we are abroad. You don’t realize how much stuff you have accumulated until you try to lift it and store it somewhere else. Hear now my translation of verse 17 of our gospel text this morning:
“And he [the rich man] said, ‘What should I do, for I have nowhere to store all the fruits of my labor’ (Luke 12.17).”
The translation you may have probably reads something like, “for I have nowhere to store my crops…” but, as anyone who is forced to listen to my words long would tell you, every translation of the Bible is an interpretation. The actual Greek word here is not the term “crop.” It is the term “fruit.” And, as we all know, fruit is a metaphor for many things other than agricultural produce. The fruits of our labor can refer to the things we own, it can refer to the things we have been able to accomplish in our lives. It can refer to a whole range of things other than apples and kiwi and grapes.
“And he [the rich man] said, ‘What should I do, for I have nowhere to store all the fruits of my labor’ (Luke 12.17).”
Such it seems is the perennial question for all of us. We never have enough space for our stuff. No amount of yard sales or donations to the Goodwill Store ever seems to get rid of enough of it either.
When we read a parable in the Bible about a rich man, we think of a man who is very wealthy for his time and place in society. The term itself, “rich,” seems to conjure up in our minds this image of a guy wearing a silk smoking jacket, drinking the finest cognac, delivered to him by his personal butler “Jives.” When Jesus tells us this parable of the rich fool in our gospel lesson this morning, this is where our mind travels. Granted, we place this rich man in a different cultural and temporal context, that of ancient Israel instead of a mansion in the Hamptons. But, nonetheless, we cannot help but imagine rich as having the connotation of owning and consuming the best, nicest, and most expensive things.
I would caution you against imagining this rich man in the parable this morning as such. For you see, going back to my previous point that every translation is an interpretation, the Greek word here used for rich is a little different from what we are tempted to imagine. The word here does not mean possessing and enjoying the nicest, most expensive stuff, but rather, possessing a lot of stuff. The meaning of “rich” here is not about how regal or expensive the man’s possessions, but simply about how many possessions he has.
I should really stop translating the text from the Greek, because every time that I do, I find that I am being implicated in something. It is no longer some abstract character in a parable that I should try not to be like, it is instead Jesus speaking directly to me. It is my thoughts that come to mind, “What should I do, for I have no place to store the fruits of my labor, aka my stuff.” When I read the passage in Greek, I find that it is not speaking to some guy in fictional mansion, but that Jesus is speaking to me, the guy living in a three bedroom, brick ranch. Jesus is not simply telling the crowd a story about the richest one percent of the population. Jesus is speaking to you and to me with our overflowing closets and our stuff that we have to cram under the bed in order to get it out of the way. The message Jesus speaks to the crowd, then the same as now, is clear—we are the rich fools. We are the ones who try to find solace and comfort in our IRA’s and our 401 K’s and worldly possessions. We are the ones who think that stuff can help us feel better about ourselves. We are the ones who spend the majority of our time making money so that we can enjoy stuff.
And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store all the fruits of my labor?” Then the man with many possessions said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my stuff. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have plenty of stuff stored up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.’” But God said to him, “You foolish man! This very night they are demanding your soul from you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.
One more interesting thing about this passage—God tells the foolish man who has a lot of stuff that this very night THEY are demanding his life from him. Your translation once again, probably does not include this important word. The reasoning behind it is that it makes the passage too hard to understand because it follows that it should be God demanding the life of the rich fool. Some scholars have explained this as speaking of the angels of death or some other sort of heavenly beings. But the most convincing explanation in my mind is that it is placed here in the text to draw our minds back to the man’s possessions.
It is the man’s possessions that are demanding his life! After all, that is what his thoughts are consumed with. At no point in the parable do we hear in the thoughts of the rich fool any concern for the poor. At no point in the parable do we hear in the thoughts of the rich fool any concern for the hungry, or the widows, or the homeless, or the single mothers. His thoughts are on his possessions and he is dominated by them.
If you take home nothing else from my words here, take home this and etch it into your mind—We don’t own stuff! It owns us!
We in America own more stuff than any other country. We consume more than any other country. We buy more than any other country. But the reality is that we are a nation possessed by our possessions. The richest people in our nation are the poor. The most wealthy citizens of our land are the homeless. Jesus, the one whose earthly father was a carpenter, had no home to keep his stuff in. When he traveled from the Galilee to Jerusalem, speaking to the crowds that gathered to hear him like the one from our text this morning, he did not have to worry about what mini storage facility he would store his belongings until he returned.
It is hard to find a good mini storage facility. They are overpriced. They are located in areas that are susceptible to flooding and robbery. And to top it all off, they are small. Luckily, Jennifer and I found a suitable mini storage facility to store our possessions while we make the journey to England.
But, leave it to Jesus to ruin your plans…
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Treasures in heaven, huh? That seems kinda vague. What exactly does that look like, and does it come with picture in picture, a 60 inch screen, and a universal remote control?
As I was studying this text this past week, this “heavenly treasure” was the thing that bothered me the most. You see, you can’t see heavenly treasure. OR SO I THOUGHT!!!
I was driving down the road and there it was right next to the Mexican Restaurant: Heavenly Treasures Christian Bookstore. I rushed in to catch a glimpse of glory divine, when, my eyes adjusted from being in the bright sunlight. Apparently, Jesus wants us to buy wind chimes with Bible verses on them, and little sculptures of angels, patriotic ties, coffee mugs with crosses on them, and pictures of eagles with Bible verses in the background.
This is just my opinion, but, I don’t think that Heavenly Treasure is what our Lord and Savior had in mind. But, it is not just our concept of heavenly treasure that needs to be destroyed. The way we think and the way we act, the way we spend our money and even the way we spend our free time—our whole world really needs to be destroyed.
“What! You can’t destroy the world! That’s where I keep all my stuff!”
